


Unlock

by borntoblue



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 07:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4697006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borntoblue/pseuds/borntoblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hakyeon is so close to his goal, so close to his constant ache being cured, but his travelling companions make getting there more complicated than he would like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlock

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for mentions of a city exploding. I wasn't sure how to convey that in the tags, so here it is instead.
> 
> Written for forvixx’s summer exchange. Not gonna lie, this fic was a struggle, but I loved the prompt and I made it in the end so I count this as a win. This version is slightly edited from the version posted for the exchange, but no major changes were made.

Hakyeon’s breath catches in his throat the instant he sees the speck of Ardoran on the horizon.

“I’m not trying to criticize the boss” Wonshik tells Jaehwan as they pass Hakyeon by. “It’s just that scavenging’s never been very profitable. We haven’t done it in years and I don’t understand why he’s so keen to start doing it again.”

Hakyeon hardly hears him, so caught up in looking at the far thing that was once his home. The constant ache in his chest gets worse the instant he thinks about it, and intensifies to the point of tears as Hakyeon realizes how close he is. Never mind his aching feet, never mind his heavy limbs, never mind the relentless sun and the shifting sands, Hakyeon wants to run and run until he gets there, not looking back for a second until he’s finally-

“Servant, you okay back here?”

That’s Jaehwan, poking his nose near Hakyeon’s face and drawing Hakyeon out of his trance. The ache lessens to its usual bearable level, and once Hakyeon’s re-oriented himself he gives Jaehwan a frown.

“I’m fine,” he insists, hoisting the packs he’s carrying further up his back. He graciously ignores Jaehwan’s nickname and Jaehwan shrugs, turning back to his conversation with Wonshik, who’s still going on about how he doesn’t see how scavenging will help them make money.

Hakyeon’s about to zone out again, sometimes it’s the best thing he can do to cope with the desert when no one’s talking to him, but before he can immerse himself in thought Taekwoon walks up beside him.

“Are you sure there’s nothing you need?” 

Hakyeon looks at him steadily. 

Of all of the bandits, he understands Taekwoon the least. He seems to be an aloof leader, always standing guard at the back in silence rather than leading them from the front. Yet despite the distance he keeps, he’s attentive. He even pays attention to Hakyeon despite his official position having been “human packhorse” for the past two days.

In this case, Hakyeon doesn’t want Taekwoon paying too much attention, so he shakes his head, giving Taekwoon his best imitation of a smile.

“Don’t worry about me, just tired as usual.”

Taekwoon’s brow furrows slightly. His “proper frown” as opposed to his “usual frown”, as Sanghyuk puts it.

“You should be getting used to it by now,” he says, muttering even more than usual. “Aren’t you Ardoran by birth? Shouldn’t you be adapted to the desert?”

Hakyeon huffs, “You do realize I haven’t been near this area since I was seven. Only Ardoran was liveable here, and once mages blew it up we crossed this desert in a hurry and never came back.”

“That makes sense,” Taekwoon says. His voice makes him sound uninterested as he strays to his usual spot at the back, but his gaze is steady and focused on Hakyeon. “Tell me if you need anything.”

Hakyeon says he will, but he also knows there isn’t enough spare food to help him, isn’t enough spare water to quench him, and there certainly isn’t anything that will get rid of his ache until they get to Ardoran proper, and those are the only things he needs.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

Over the course of the day, the bandits and Hakyeon approach Ardoran enough for it to become a shape instead of a speck. Even from this distance, Hakyeon can see it’s not the bright and colourful city he once knew. It’s a dark interruption of the horizon during the day, and it doesn’t light up at night.

The ache in Hakyeon’s chest worsens, but he doesn’t know if it’s the usual longing or a deep sadness.

It’s still a bearable ache however, nothing like the sharp spike from earlier, so Hakyeon works through it, complaining about his more mundane pains to Sanghyuk as they set up the bandits’ camp for the night.

Sanghyuk has been Hakyeon’s most valuable ally among the bandits. If Hakyeon were to disregard Sanghyuk being a teenager, he would even venture to call Sanghyuk his friend. Sanghyuk is technically the one who got Hakyeon into this mess of travelling with them, but he’s also the one who saved Hakyeon from the even bigger mess of being stranded in the desert after being robbed. 

All in all, Hakyeon likes him, and judging by the way Sanghyuk made negotiations with the bandits possible and also lets Hakyeon sleep in his tent, Hakyeon guesses the sentiment is returned.

“Just how close are we to Ardoran, anyways?” Hakyeon asks, looking out at the horizon again. It’s almost getting too dark to see the city but he keeps checking. It doesn’t seem real to be here after so long. If it weren’t for how real the sand and tent feel, Hakyeon would expect to wake up from a dream any minute.

“With you slowing us down, who knows?” Sanghyuk says, but when that gets him an eye roll he actually answers the question. “I’ve never been, but Hongbin says we should be there by the end of tomorrow night.”

“We’re that close?” Hakyeon almost drops the tent pole he’s carrying.

Sanghyuk looks even less sure now, “I said I could be wrong, but-“

“I can’t believe it,” Hakyeon looks out at the city again, a dark mass against the orange-pink sky. “Even if we’re not there tomorrow, we’ll be there the next day, right?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Sanghyuk watches Hakyeon stare. “That must be exciting for you.”

Hakyeon looks down at the tent pole in his hand, twirling it around as he frowns.

“Exciting is one way of putting it.”

Sanghyuk hums in response. He never seems to know quite how to respond to Hakyeon talking about Ardoran that way. He moves onto his tent pitching duties, conversation forgotten.

After one more look at Ardoran, Hakyeon focuses on the tent too.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

Unfortunately, even once the tents are pitched and Hakyeon has dragged himself inside, flopped comfortably onto his bedding, he’s not allowed to sleep as much as he would like.

“We’re having a meeting,” Hongbin informs him as he hastily shakes Hakyeon awake. 

Hakyeon groans, loudly, but he sits up anyways. He’s not in a position to actually protest what he’s told to do.

It’s properly dark out now. The sky is clear, displaying an amount of stars that’s amazing to Hakyeon after living on the rainy coast most of his life, and the moon shines clearly across the sands. The bandits have set up a campfire, they set one up every night, and they’re seated solemnly around it. Taekwoon has his eyes closed, but everyone’s looking at him anyways, even as Hakyeon and Hongbin take their seats.

There’s another beat of silence where Taekwoon has his eyes closed, breathing deeply in and out as he faces the fire. The glow of it flickers around his face, dancing on his cheeks and nose. 

The longer Taekwoon stays silent, the more tense the other bandits get, sitting up straight and watching Taekwoon with deeper intensity, but Hakyeon doesn’t feel the tension. He thinks Taekwoon looks nice and peaceful like this, not intimidating. Taekwoon seems comfortable, like he’s enjoying his time to think in silence, and Hakyeon thinks it’s not bad to see him like this.

Then again, Hakyeon hasn’t known Taekwoon for that long, so he may be reading him completely wrong. 

In the meantime, Taekwoon’s eyes open, and the other bandits relax a bit. They’re ready for the discussion to begin.

“Despite Wonshik’s protests,” Taekwoon starts, making Jaehwan snort, “we’re headed into Ardoran to scavenge. Although past ventures have been unsuccessful, Hakyeon claims he has a lead towards real riches.”

Hakyeon swallows as all the bandits’ eyes flash towards him.

“That’s why we’re keeping him?” Hongbin asks as he turns back to Taekwoon, more curious than anything else.

“Yeah,” Sanghyuk’s the one to explain this time, giving Hakyeon a cautious look. “He kept talking about looking for things in Ardoran when I was undercover with the tourist group, so when we conducted our raid I brought him to the boss.”

Wonshik frowns, turning to Taekwoon again, “I thought he was just a new recruit.”

“He could be,” Taekwoon fixes a very significant glance at Hakyeon. “Or he could be our temporary guide. Either way, he’ll be helpful.”

“He could be lying, too,” Wonshik points out, which makes Hakyeon clear his throat very loudly.

“I’m right here,” Hakyeon reminds him. “I’m part of this discussion too.”

Wonshik largely ignores Hakyeon’s input, “Leader, why didn’t you tell us this earlier?”

“Yeah,” Jaehwan chimes in, though he gives an apologetic glance to Hakyeon. “He’s been with us for two days already, you can’t just keep a secret like that.”

“I didn’t really keep a secret. I just didn’t explain the situation to most of you.”

Wonshik sighs in frustration, “Of course. Shouldn’t have doubted you.”

“If it helps at all,” Sanghyuk starts again, “I think Hakyeon’s trustworthy. I wouldn’t have brought him here if I thought otherwise.”

“No offence, Sanghyuk,” Wonshik does look at Hakyeon this time, “but if you found him with those noble tourists, I really don’t think so.”

“Fair point, but do you really think I’m a noble?” Hakyeon defends himself properly, gesturing to his clothes. His lack of noble blood is one of the truths he tells the bandits. “I’m a scholar,” that one’s a lie, though he’s been telling it since he left home, “and I lived in Ardoran before it was blown up.” Another truth. “Some of the books my parents took with them give very good layouts of the city, and I know them by heart. If you want to effectively look for artifacts, I’m the person you want with you.” A partial lie. Hakyeon knows about the layout of Ardoran’s districts from his parents’ books, but no more than that. It’s possible the bandits know as much as him if they’ve been to Ardoran’s ruins before and paid attention.

Still, Hakyeon’s argument has as much truth in it as he’s willing to divulge, and he thinks it’s not a half-bad one. Wonshik seems to think so too, but he isn’t fully sold.

“We scavenged a lot in the past, you know,” Wonshik finally talks to Hakyeon directly. “It’s very likely that everything you think is there has been taken already, by us or by others.”

“I’m an Ardoran native,” he points out again with a grin. He doesn’t like to use his father’s advice but he’s counting on it now: when it comes to a tough sale, make sure to stress your selling point many times. “How often do you get the chance to meet someone who has access to original Ardoran books? How often do you think other bandits get the chance to meet someone like me? I have very rare knowledge resources, and I think I have a good chance at discovering things that you can’t on your own.”

Wonshik doesn’t respond. Hakyeon knows he’s considering, and that’s promising enough.

The rest of the bandits watch Wonshik with interest, but Taekwoon nods, considering it a done deal already, and starts addressing the group again.

“With this in mind, we’ll be going to different areas than we have before. There may still be people within the Ardoran ruins, so we’ll have to be on our guard.”

Taekwoon stands up.

“That’s all I have to say.”

Then he turns around and walks towards his personal tent.

The rest of the bandits slump back, except for Wonshik, who slumps forward.

“I had more to say,” he says, a bit petulantly, and Hongbin pats his back.

“Come on, you knew he wasn’t gonna listen,” Jaehwan yawns largely before he stands up too, walking by Hakyeon with a pat on the back. “Don’t know how you did it but you’ve got the boss totally convinced, servant. Good work.”

Hakyeon feels a surge of pride, like he’s acquired a new client, “I try my best.”

Wonshik looks at him, raising an eyebrow, but not unfriendly this time, “I guess all those scholarly debate skills paid off for you.”

Hakyeon hopes his sudden flush looks like pride and not shame. Lying is only a recently acquired skill for him. He can get it down verbally, but unless it’s a lie he’s told many times, his physical ticks can give him away. He flushed so often in the lead-up to leaving home that his mother sent him to an herbalist.

“Well,” Hakyeon lets out a small laugh, and doing that relaxes him, “this is a bit different from a proper academic debate, but I guess some of the same skills apply.”

“Either that,” Hongbin says, “or the boss just really likes you.”

“Taekwoon? Liking people?” Jaehwan calls disbelievingly from near his and Wonshik’s tent.

“He can hear you, you know,” Sanghyuk turns around to call to Jaehwan, and as if on cue, a large scuff of sand kicks up near his feet from the direction of Taekwoon’s tent. Wonshik and Hongbin laugh at Jaehwan as he whimpers about the extra sand in his boots.

Hakyeon’s vaguely amused by this, but he decides to get up and get back to sleep before he gets drawn in.

The ache isn’t bad at night, so he has to sleep while it’s not, and besides that, he doesn’t want to think about Taekwoon’s possible motivations.

The simpler he keeps this, the more focused he is on his own goals, the better.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

Hakyeon can’t stop staring at Ardoran the next day as it becomes a more defined shape, a cluster of buildings as opposed to a blot on the horizon. His chest aches even more now, but it’s easier to ignore with fatigue dragging him down everywhere else on his body.

“You’re dragging your feet even more than usual,” Sanghyuk comments, prompting a glare, but he doesn’t tease more than that. From what Hakyeon’s gathered, he’s a relatively new addition, so he probably still remembers what it was like when he first started travelling the desert.

Sanghyuk and Hakyeon’s chat attracts the attention of Jaehwan a few paces ahead of them.

“Shouldn’t you be happy?” Jaehwan hangs back upon hearing conversation. “I mean, you’re kinda headed home, aren’t you?”

“I’m a bit conflicted,” Hakyeon looks ahead of them again, eyes fixed on Ardoran, and the ache starts to mount in intensity. “It was my home, but it’s ruins now.”

“That,” Jaehwan pauses for a moment, grasping for the right thing to say, “will certainly be a downer.”

“You’re really great at comforting,” Sanghyuk mutters at Jaehwan, but Hakyeon waves both of them off. 

“It’s fine, I won’t think about it for now.”

“Jaehwan, Sanghyuk.”

The two practically jump as Taekwoon appears behind them and Hakyeon. Hakyeon turns around to look at his blank face more calmly.

“I need you two further in front so we can see more ground. I’ve got Hakyeon covered, I need more eyes up there.”

“Right away,” Jaehwan and Sanghyuk answer in sync, and quickly move forward. Hakyeon envies their speed as he feels his own legs struggling to go faster than a pace resembling a limp.

Taekwoon lingers for a moment, almost brushing against Hakyeon’s shoulder but keeping his distance.

“Do you need to rest?”

Hakyeon’s eyes stray to Ardoran again. He’s starting to see crumbled walls, lines against the buildings. The ache, the longing, outright pulses through him, and bring his feet to a stop.

He’s so close to the city, to his goal, to the power that should be _his_ and-

Hakyeon grits his teeth, bringing himself back to his body and his heavy limbs. He stopped walking with that last pulse, and Taekwoon has stopped behind him, hovering with slight concern.

“I’m fine,” Hakyeon insists, hiking up the tents on his back. “I won’t rest well until we’re there.”

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

Like Sanghyuk predicted, they don’t reach Ardoran that night, but the ruins of the city are starting to loom over them rather than look like a distant goal. 

Hakyeon’s chest aches so much he’s finding it hard to sleep.

It hasn’t been difficult for him to fall asleep because of the ache for months now. Back home, even that vague nagging that something was missing could make his comfortable bed irrelevant. It was difficult when he began travelling too, when the ache properly presented itself for the first time. But even then, Hakyeon’s other worries would distract him and his aching body would drag him to sleep eventually.

Tonight, with the ache so intense, the stuffy air around him, Sanghyuk snoring softly and the fatigue not as bone-deep as earlier nights in the desert, Hakyeon finds himself staring at the vague texture of tent canvas for what feels like far too long.

Hakyeon’s so tired he feels delirious, but his heart is beating fast, believing itself truly constricted instead of affected by magic, and he tosses and turns from side to side. He’s remembering hotels now. Sanghyuk’s snoring reminds him of the times he didn’t have enough money to get a room for himself, and the vague chatter outside is reminding him of hotels with thin floors and thin walls where he heard people talking all night, both comforted that he wasn’t not alone and annoyed with the noise.

He hears rustling near the front of the tent, and tries his best not to sit up because that will get rid of whatever progress he’s made so far, but he sees a silhouette of Taekwoon’s compact head and sits up, figuring it’s important.

“Sanghyuk, are you awake?” He doesn’t try to whisper, but since his voice is wispy anyways it feels like he is.

“Now I am,” Sanghyuk grunts, despite not moving.

“Are you awake enough to run out and scout with me?”

That makes Hakyeon very alert and Sanghyuk awake enough to sit up.

“Why me?”

Even in the darkness, Hakyeon can recognize Taekwoon’s eyes looking at Sanghyuk specifically, “You’re the best at sneaking around, and I reckon we’ll have to be cautious around this party.”

Sanghyuk’s pushing his blankets aside now, “Why?”

“You’ll see once we get closer,” Taekwoon watches as Sanghyuk starts to struggle out of his sleeping place, then spares a glance for Hakyeon.

“Go back to sleep. You’ll know of the results in the morning.”

Hakyeon wasn’t asleep but that would be a useless correction, so he lies back down, listening to Sanghyuk pull on his boots.

Knowing there’s another party out there, he feels even less able to sleep.

Danger other than desert survival was not exactly part of the plan.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

The bandits normally wake up early so they can get a few hours of walking in before the sun’s fully in the sky, but today they wake up Hakyeon before the sun’s even risen.

“I need my sleep,” he grumbles, but seeing a longer face than Taekwoon’s silhouetted in the tent’s opening and remembering last night’s conversation, Hakyeon feels a spark of alarm and sits up. “Actually, what is it?”

“They’re not back yet,” that’s Wonshik’s deep voice, and his words make Hakyeon blink the sleep out of his eyes quicker than he has in months. “Taekwoon and Sanghyuk, they haven’t come back, so Jaehwan and I are the next ones going out. You and Hongbin have to stay here and sit by the fire. Keep watch, but keep quiet about it.” 

Hakyeon’s struggling out of his bedding now, gravely listening to Wonshik’s words as his heart starts to race. 

Taekwoon and Sanghyuk are the most convinced of Hakyeon’s plan. If they don’t come back and the other bandits get put in charge, Hakyeon might be doomed to travel with them without seeing Ardoran up close for months.

The ache might make his heart actually collapse by then.

“What do I do if I see anything?” Hakyeon asks seriously as he exits the tent, tugging his boots on. He sticks his feet right in without emptying the piles of sand out, and decides that’s good enough for now. “Shouldn’t I yell for you guys?”

“No, just make it obvious to Hongbin that you saw something and he’ll know what to do.”

That’s not comforting. Hakyeon doesn’t like being in the dark about the bandits’ plans. It makes it hard to adjust his personal plans ahead of time.

Still, he sits down near the fire, across from where Hongbin is seated, and watches Wonshik and Jaehwan dash over the nearest dune.

Hongbin says nothing. He always seems fairly tense, Hakyeon suspects he’s shy with strangers, but he’s sitting almost completely still now, watching the other side of the camp with wide eyes, steadily rotating his head from side to side like an especially slow metronome.

Hakyeon knows Hongbin’s looking past him, but it’s still unnerving to be caught in that gaze even slightly.

“Can I go to sleep?” Hakyeon asks. He doesn’t know if he’s seriously asking or trying to lighten the mood.

Hongbin makes eye contact for the first time since Hakyeon sat down. 

“I wouldn’t advise it unless you can sleep sitting up. You might get sand your mouth or nose and that would wake you up.”

“That’s no different from inside the tent,” Hakyeon mutters, but Hongbin’s already back to scanning the horizon, and Hakyeon decides against sleeping after all.

Trapped between Hongbin’s intense gaze and his fear of not getting to Ardoran after all, the time before the other bandits’ return passes unbearably slow to Hakyeon. It feels like hours before he sees head shapes appear over a nearby dune, lit slightly by the tip of the sun on the horizon.

Hakyeon leaps to his feet once he sees them, but he freezes once he gets the full picture. Hongbin runs over, his worry even more clear on his face, but Hakyeon can’t move as inch as he makes out Wonshik flanked by Taekwoon and Jaehwan, holding Sanghyuk in his arms.

“What happened?” he hears Hongbin demand. 

“The other camp was tough,” is all Taekwoon says. His teeth are ground together, and his voice is harsh.

Hakyeon runs over to join them, eyes fixed on Sanghyuk. He’s clearly unconscious, but not bleeding or bruised at all, and he’s breathing steadily. For all intents and purposes, he looks like he should be asleep, but the grim expressions of the others seem to say that’s not the case.

“That doesn’t explain his condition,” Hakyeon insists, and Wonshik fixes him with a glare.

“They were _mages_ , Hakyeon,” the contempt in his voice is obvious through his gritted teeth. “The bastards put him to sleep, and he won’t wake up no matter how much we move him or talk to him.”

Hakyeon feels himself freezing again and Taekwoon steps forward to put his hand on Hakyeon’s shoulder. Perhaps he thinks Hakyeon is afraid of mages. That would be a reasonable assumption, and Hakyeon’s not going to correct it. It might even have been true, before he found out what the ache meant.

“Go with Wonshik to your tent and look after Sanghyuk there. The rest of us have some decisions to make.”

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

“I don’t hate mages,” Jaehwan says, though he sounds uncertain, “but I certainly don’t want to mess with them. Like, ever. Played a drinking game with one once and he almost charmed my nose off.”

“This is a serious discussion, Jaehwan,” Wonshik butts in. Jaehwan starts apologizing, Taekwoon starts reminding Wonshik to stop being so bossy when they need everyone’s input, and Hakyeon tunes out, once again focusing on Sanghyuk’s sleeping face and the sound of his breathing. It will turn into snoring soon, if he’s asleep much longer.

The group outside have agreed on one thing: they’re not going anywhere until they know what to do with Sanghyuk. They’re playing a waiting game for now; Hongbin’s optimistic that the sleeping spell won’t last forever though Wonshik and Taekwoon don’t seem to be, and if Sanghyuk sleeps for a whole twenty-four hours they’ll be headed back to civilization to find a mage there.

Hakyeon wants Sanghyuk to be okay, but he doesn’t want to turn back when Ardoran’s a day away either.

The other decision, the one they have yet to make, is whether they’re going to move forward at all if Sanghyuk wakes up soon. Regardless of mages’ attitudes in general, this group of mages is dangerous. It might not be worth it to go scavenging if they’re headed in the same direction, which Taekwoon said definitely that they were.

Hakyeon wants to weigh in on that decision, but he's been told to stay here, and he knows they won't appreciate it if he stops watching Sanghyuk to try and convince them to go ahead. He'd be a bit peeved at himself if he did that with a young man's safety on the line, and Sanghyuk looks very young while asleep. He’s drooling a bit and his snores are light, less deep than his speaking voice. Hakyeon doesn’t notice it under all the head coverings they wear during the day, but now that he’s looking, he sees some fat on Sanghyuk’s cheeks.

Hakyeon looks down at his hands in trepidation.

There's one thing Hakyeon can do to wake Sanghyuk up, he just has to make sure no one else sees it.

Hakyeon leans forward, peering out the slight crack in the tent's opening, and sees no one looking directly at it.

That's good enough for him. It's not like this magic will flash anyways.

Kneeling beside Sanghyuk's shoulders, Hakyeon places his hands on Sanghyuk's chest and focuses on the contact between them.

Slowly but surely, Hakyeon feels the ache in his chest move.

Hakyeon winces as it does. It splits into two places and makes his shoulders feel like he's been hauling crates, then it creeps down his arms like his veins are tightening, his wrists are being squeezed, then the ache oozes into his hands, and with one last push of the mind, Hakyeon's ache pulses slightly into Sanghyuk.

After coming into contact with another human, the pain rushes back to its original place. Hakyeon winces, biting back a yell, and looks at Sanghyuk desperately.

He knows the ache’s magic still works, he himself repels magic as much as ever, but it’s been a while since he’s tried moving the effect to anything else.

Hakyeon stops biting his tongue as Sanghyuk draws a sharp breath.

Sanghyuk's eyes spring open afterwards, and Hakyeon slumps onto himself in relief.

"Do you feel alright?" Hakyeon asks. There's no side effects to the ache being used on other people, but the mages' spell might not be fully out of Sanghyuk's system yet.

"I'm just sleepy," Sanghyuk sits up. "Are we back at camp? I thought I was scouting some other party with Taekwoon." He looks at Hakyeon while frowning. "Did I dream that?"

Hakyeon shakes his head, "Sadly, no. You ran into some mages, and they put you to sleep."

Sanghyuk doesn't respond for a good few seconds.

"Mages? All the way out here?"

Hakyeon shrugs, "They have legs, they can be anywhere.”

"That's not especially comforting," Sanghyuk says, probably about to go on with more sarcastic complaints when he stops. 

"Where are the others?"

"Can't you hear them?" Hakyeon asks, as his ears tune into Hongbin saying he can't imagine there's anything out there worth dealing with mages. He says mages like he's half-hissing it, and Hakyeon tries to not let that be discouraging.

"Shit," Sanghyuk says, now struggling to stand up. Hakyeon, newly aware of Sanghyuk's age, is about to scold him for language but Sanghyuk pushes outside the tent before Hakyeon gets the chance.

"You're awake," Taekwoon says from outside, and a hush falls over the group.

Hakyeon hurries to his feet, stumbling his way outside the tent as Sanghyuk stands up, facing the group.

"Oh my god, you're awake!" Jaehwan repeats, standing to his feet. 

"How did that happen?" Wonshik asks, wide-eyed.

Sanghyuk shrugs, "I dunno. Felt a weird pain then woke up."

Taekwoon frowns at Hakyeon, "Did you hit him?"

The bandits all look at Hakyeon suspiciously. He glares in return.

"What kind of person do you think I am?"

"It didn't feel like someone hitting me," Sanghyuk elaborates, and the bandits look to him instead. "It felt like..." He pauses, grasping for words with his still sleep-addled mind. "I don't know, it felt weird. It was like something pushed down on me but it pushed in a way that felt... Whatever, nothing actually pushed me, I'm sure of that."

"Do you feel alright now?" Taekwoon speaks again, and Sanghyuk nods.

"A bit sleepy, but fine."

"Sit down," he says, patting the sand beside him, and looks up at Hakyeon hovering behind Hongbin. "You too, Hakyeon."

Wonshik frowns, "Boss, we all know what Hakyeon will want us to do."

"I'm not convinced of either side yet. I'll hear from everyone before I make my decision."

"What are we even deciding?" Sanghyuk asks.

"Whether we go to Ardoran or not," Taekwoon supplies.

"Didn't we already decide that?"

Jaehwan laughs, "Boss, explain better than that."

"The mages are headed to Ardoran as well. We aren't sure whether we should go that way with danger on our heels."

Sanghyuk furrows his eyebrows, "But we already made our decision."

"Doesn't mean we can't change our minds," Hongbin says.

Hakyeon says nothing. As much as Taekwoon invited him to speak, this feels more like a bandits-only meeting than any he's sat at before. They’re talking about the possibility of danger, not just the possibility of wasting time, and even Hakyeon almost feels that if going ahead means Sanghyuk getting hurt again, he might not protest going back too vocally. He knows it must be even more personal for the other bandits.

"Taekwoon doesn't normally change his mind," Sanghyuk looks at their leader seriously. "You always stick with your decisions, right?"

Taekwoon's eyebrows furrow, "Not if we'll be in danger."

"We're always in danger," Sanghyuk argues. "We spend most of our time in a desert."

"Sanghyuk, we're trying to have a reasonable discussion like adults-"

Sanghyuk cuts Wonshik right off.

"I want to go to Ardoran. You've never taken me before and I think it will be exciting."

“There are mages around," Hongbin insists, squirming in his seat with discomfort.

"Nothing we can't avoid," Sanghyuk insists. "We're thieves. We’re sneaky for a living."

Jaehwan has been sitting around looking thoughtful for a while, but at that he joins the conversation again, "I agree, they really aren't that much of a problem. I think we were exaggerating the danger since Sanghyuk was still asleep."

"They can probably cast other spells. Spells that do more than put someone to sleep,” Hongbin points out.

"Who knows if someone else will wake up as fast as Sanghyuk did this time?" Wonshik makes that appeal while looking at Taekwoon. 

Hakyeon bites his tongue so he doesn't say anything about how he woke Sanghyuk up. That would definitely sound weird, and he's positive he doesn't want to explain the ache to any of them.

In the meantime, Taekwoon looks at Sanghyuk only.

"You're sure about this?"

Sanghyuk nods resolutely. 

That surprises Hakyeon. He hadn't known he'd had such an effect on Sanghyuk's thoughts.

Taekwoon nods in return.

"We'll continue on to Ardoran then."

Wonshik groans, "You're spoiling him."

Sanghyuk stands up eagerly, "I don't mind!" 

Taekwoon, to Hakyeon's shock, has the smallest smile appear on his face.

"If he doesn't mind then that's all that matters," Taekwoon looks to Hakyeon after that. His smile doesn't grow at all, but it doesn't get any smaller. "I'd feel bad going back on something I promised our guest anyways."

"I go from servant to guest?" Hakyeon's eyebrows shoot up.

"Still a guest that has to carry the tents," Taekwoon tells him, then his smile disappears and his default frown is back in place. "Everyone, pack everything up."

They're relatively silent as they start to do so. Wonshik and Hongbin seemed resigned now, Jaehwan keeps shooting Taekwoon weird looks, and Hakyeon and Sanghyuk somehow seem equally confused.

"I've never seen him smile before," Hakyeon says, still in awe. He can't stop thinking about it. Taekwoon looked almost cute like that. A bandit leader shouldn't be able to be cute.

"I've seen it once. He was smiling at someone's dog," Sanghyuk stares at the tent canvas in his hands for a few moments longer than necessary. "I just can't believe he listened to me that well."

Jaehwan comes up behind them, done with his task of packing up the fire, and slings his arms around the both of them.

"As someone who's been in Taekwoon's vicinity for longer than either of you, trust me, he's just happy Sanghyuk is fine. He'll go back to doing whatever he wants once he's recovered."

"I hope the recovery is slow," Sanghyuk says, still staring at the bundle of fabric in his arms.

All three of them, a bit rushed and dumbfounded from all the events of the morning, start to laugh.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

At least on Hakyeon's part, that camaraderie disappears as the morning wears on, the sun rises farther in the sky, and he has to drag his feet through the sand with Taekwoon silently on his tail and the others ahead of them, free of burden on their backs.

"I hate the desert," Hakyeon states, feeling another gust of sand blow by his face.

"I can't count the number of times you've said that," Taekwoon says, and Hakyeon looks back at him with a glare.

“Well, I hate it that much."

"I can't believe you were born here."

Hakyeon pouts, turning away, "I wasn't born in a desert, I was born in a city that was in the middle of a desert, and it had lots of water and shelter and we had enchanted lamps to cool our house during the day."

Taekwoon hurries a few paces forward at those words, "I thought the people of Ardoran hated magic. Why would you use enchanted lamps?"

Hakyeon focuses on his feet for a moment, trying to think about that one.

"There were lots of people in Ardoran who thought like that, but cities have too many people in them for everyone to think alike. The city as a whole had a complicated relationship with magic but yes, many people hated magic."

Hakyeon hates to think of it, to admit his hometown was so deeply flawed, but there were enough people that hated mages for mage suicides to be a common occurrence. The murders were even more common than the suicides, too. Hakyeon had forced himself not to be too sad about the deaths back then, but thinking about them now is chilling, knowing there was eventually a mage suicide big enough to explode the whole city. A city's biggest flaw, turned fatal.

"But your family sympathized with mages," Taekwoon urges him to continue, and Hakyeon shakes himself of thinking about

"To an extent," he says, frowning. “My family was just practical. They were polite to mages and sympathized with their issues, but they still made business with people who hated mages. It was a superficial kind of support.”

“So they used enchanted items because it was practical, not because of any feelings towards mages.”

“That’s it exactly,” Hakyeon sighs after he says it. He was so proud of his family’s stance on mages as a child. He thought they were so much better than his peers for not hating them. As an adult with hindsight, he hates their position almost as much as outright magic hatred.

“Do you feel the same way?”

Taekwoon eyes Hakyeon carefully. Hakyeon looks down at the ground. He’s not sure whether this is dangerous conversation territory or no.

“I’d like to support mages more,” he says. “I try to put in a good word for them and buy their services when I can. I just don’t… Know what to do beyond that. It’s hard to avoid people who hate mages. There’s too many of them.”

“How do you know your family didn’t think the same way?”

Hakyeon grits his teeth.

“Their actions proved it.”

Taekwoon, wisely, doesn’t press the subject anymore and slows his pace, leaving Hakyeon alone.

Hakyeon’s been feeling less cautious towards the bandits, but he definitely regrets sharing that story with Taekwoon. He’s thinking about his family’s actions now, and the ache’s bad enough without anger in the mix.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

Hakyeon almost thinks the ache's gone away the instant Ardoran looms above them properly, casting shade as the sun goes down.

Sanghyuk was leading the group up to that point, gaping at the abandoned buildings, but once Hakyeon sees his former home in walking distance, he leaves his fatigue behind to sprint in front of everyone.

"It's here!" he says urgently, feeling the ache in his chest get more focused, smaller, seeming to point in a specific direction. "It's still here!"

"Of course it is," Hongbin raises an eyebrow, thinking Hakyeon's talking about the city. "You've been seeing it for days."

Hakyeon shakes his head, reminding himself not to mention anything that could reveal his goal.

"It's different seeing it up close!" He insists to Hongbin, looking at the buildings again. 

Sanghyuk is looking at the buildings with what looks close to fear.

"This is what it looks like up close?"

"Eerie, isn't it," Wonshik comments while slinging his arm around Sanghyuk, clearly trying to be comforting. Sanghyuk waves him away, at first, but a large piece of brick tumbles down and he jumps. After that, he lets Wonshik pat his back.

Hakyeon doesn't disagree that the former city is eerie now. He lived here little more than two decades ago. He knows how it became a ruin, he knows the explosion was almost instantaneous, but two decades still seems too fast for a bustling, thriving city to become a crumbling, dusty bunch of bricks, much less the mere minutes that it was.

"Eeriest part is that there's no skeletons," Jaehwan says, grinning mischievously as he leans into Wonshik and Sanghyuk's space. "All the dead bodies disappeared into thin air," he snaps his fingers. "Just like magic."

"It _was_ magic," Taekwoon says, matter-of-factly, and Jaehwan jumps to attention sheepishly. Taekwoon looks over the whole group carefully. "That's part of why we find it so strange here, all the residual magic."

Hakyeon doesn't feel the magic, the ache makes it impossible for him to do so, but the silence of the others seems like a quiet agreement that the feeling in the air is very creepy.

Hakyeon's almost envious. He wishes he could remember what magic felt like.

"Regardless," Taekwoon says, "we need to move further into the city. If the mages are around, we need a well-covered area to set up camp before the sun goes down so they can’t find us easily."

At their leader's orders, the group moves in, grave and determined.

Hakyeon starts to trail behind them again, looking up at the darkening spires of his old hometown.

The ache points now, but it doesn't point precisely. Hakyeon's goal is clearly inside Ardoran's borders, all he has to do is lead the bandits to his ache's destination.

Hakyeon clenches his fist, holding it over his chest, and crosses the threshold of the dead city.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

Jaehwan and Hongbin blink at Hakyeon as he emerges from his tent the next morning, shaking his head from side to side.

"You're up earlier than Sanghyuk," Hongbin comments.

"I can wake up on my own," Hakyeon says, though in reality it was a spike of pain in his chest that woke him. "I can actually want to do things."

Taekwoon looks up from his breakfast, spoon sticking out of his mouth absent-mindedly, "I thought you'd be sad here."

"Got over all that last night!" even though it isn't true, Hakyeon knew it would annoy everybody if he said it and the groans he gets from Hongbin and Jaehwan confirm it. Taekwoon silently hands him his breakfast, a bowl of oats and dried fruit in water. Hakyeon sits next to him. "Now I'm raring to go."

"We still have to wait for the heavy sleepers though," Jaehwan says, looking over his shoulder at the tent where Wonshik is still snoring loudly. Hakyeon spares a glance for his and Sanghyuk's tent as well, though they can't quite hear Sanghyuk from here.

"Oh well, I might as well be up when they do," Hakyeon says, putting a spoonful of oats in his mouth. He swallows it nearly whole, not chewing or dwelling on the flavour for too long. Of all the things he misses outside the desert, food that isn't oats, dried fruit, or dried meat is pretty high up on the list.

"You are very cheerful for someone who's in the ruins of the city he was born in," Taekwoon insists again.

Hakyeon smiles so wide it feels like it splits his face.

"I finally get to lead you guys around! Why wouldn't I be happy about that?"

Hongbin says "oh joy", Jaehwan seems almost scared, and Taekwoon looks him straight in the eyes, almost disbelieving.

Hakyeon was looking forward to this part so much.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

Once they're underway, however, Hakyeon has to start lying again, and he has to put in his best effort to make sure it isn't horribly obvious.

"Okay," he says, pointing at a sign that is hardly legible, even to a native Ardoran speaker like himself, but in the direction his ache wants to go, "according to this sign we're near the library district now," this isn't entirely a lie, they passed a building Hakyeon recognized as a library earlier this morning, "so I think we should keep going there and see if there are any special archives that got preserved."

Wonshik frowns, "This isn’t even a day away from the outskirts, everything out here must have been raided by now."

"Are you doubting my expertise?" Hakyeon asks. That's his usual last resort not to get caught lying. It doesn't always work. Hakyeon kind of doubts it will work on someone as smart as Wonshik.

Wonshik opens his mouth, but Taekwoon puts his hand on Wonshik's shoulder and Wonshik closes it again.

"I guess you know more than me," Wonshik concedes.

Hakyeon turns to the front again, happily counting that as another victory.

They've mostly been leaving him to guide them around without question this morning, given that it's why they let Hakyeon travel with them in the first place. Sanghyuk interrupts every so often, he’s gotten over that initial eerie feeling and he’s often curious about what they're passing, but those questions are almost fun to answer, in a nostalgic kind of way.

Hakyeon find he mostly feels nostalgia about the city now that he’s in it. He's sad about losing his birthplace of course, and considering the fact that a lone mage destroyed the place out of anger with its people is devastating, but to Hakyeon, it happened almost two decades ago. He'll never feel the loss of Ardoran as deeply as his parents did, not even as much as his siblings did, given they were older.

There's almost a disconnect in Hakyeon's brain between these brown ruins and the colourful place Hakyeon remembers living in as a child, even though Hakyeon's ache tells him he's in the right place and he recognizes the style of the buildings, crumbling though they are.

"This is a big house," Sanghyuk comments, looking up at a three story building that sprawls above the smaller residences on the sand-buried street. "Think someone actually lived there or it was something else?"

Hakyeon pauses in his walking, considering carefully as he looks at the building too.

"I'd say someone lived there," Hakyeon points to a beheaded statue with a sword in its hands on the front lawn. "That was probably some kind of guardian statue, rich Ardorans loved those. They'd always be made to look like one of their ancestors. You'd never know for sure whether that ancestor was actually a warrior or not, but the family would insist they were, and they'd always have a few stories to tell about that person."

"Huh," Sanghyuk says.

"My father always said they were a great conversation topic with nobles you didn't know," Hakyeon elaborates as he starts to move on. The others follow in his footsteps, and Hakyeon loves the interest in their eyes. "Since nobles always loved to brag about them and the stories were usually kind of interesting, if a bit unlikely-"

"Stop."

Taekwoon says that from the back of the group, and even Hakyeon, who thought he was in charge, stops.

Taekwoon's eyes flick back and forth from one side of the road to the other. The others, tense, follow his motions, but there's nothing to be seen.

Hakyeon, to his horror, realizes that they're not actually looking for anything with their sight.

The thing out of place is that even though they've stopped, he can still hear footsteps.

"Duck into one of the small houses," Taekwoon hisses.

Everyone makes a dash towards the one beside the mansion's yard, and Hakyeon tries his best to follow them, stumbling more than he wants to. Leadership position clearly taken from him, Hakyeon feels disoriented, and the fatigue feels heavier.

Taekwoon looks at Hakyeon, runs behind him, and drags him into the house after the others, tugging him down to the floor and covering his mouth so his heavy breathing is cut off.

The others hold their breath as well, huddling beneath the broken windows and beside the open doorway as the footsteps get even closer.

"Do you feel anything yet?" A high voice asks.

Taekwoon, Jaehwan and Wonshik's eyes widen immediately, as if they recognize it.

"Jimin, I feel magic everywhere here," a deeper one, annoyed, answers back as Wonshik grits his teeth.

The people outside are the mages, Hakyeon realizes. He tries to get out of Taekwoon's grip, but it's even tighter now as Taekwoon listens to their conversation.

"Let Yoongi do his work," this voice is also high, and its owner sighs afterwards. "I know we feel like it should be obvious to him, but we don't know how his sensing works, and we shouldn't presume we do."

"Damn straight," annoyed deep voice, Yoongi, answers again, and the bandits seem outright frozen to Hakyeon. "Do you really think the mages who ran this thing would let it be easy to find?"

"I still don't get why mages would run it," a different deep voice chimes in, this one confused and sad. "Why would they take away others' magic?"

Hakyeon freezes, stopping his struggles against Taekwoon's grip.

They're looking for the same place Hakyeon is.

While Hakyeon's heart races a mile an hour, realizing his goal could be snatched away from him, the mages are silent from the inquiry.

"Maybe they had no other choice, Taehyung," put-upon voice from earlier answers, but he sounds sad now too.

Hakyeon has very little sympathy, thinking that they're aiming to steal the magic yet again.

There's more silence from the mages. The bandits are becoming even more tense. Hakyeon spots Jaehwan biting his nails.

"It doesn't matter," yet another voice chimes in, another deep one, and Taekwoon looks up, a new intense frown on his face. "Just let Yoongi do his job."

Taekwoon stands up, dragging Hakyeon with him, and Hakyeon almost grunts at him except the mages’ footsteps are still nearby, and noise might attract attention to the window, where they’ll definitely see Taekwoon now.

Taekwoon takes one step forward, but then Sanghyuk grabs his leg.

‘Revenge not worth it,’ he mouths, clearly pleading.

Taekwoon’s grip on Hakyeon loosens slightly.

“Yoongi are you sure you don’t-“

“Just keep quiet, Jimin.”

The mages do keep quiet as their footsteps fade away, and the bandits keep even quieter, plastered against the wall.

Taekwoon finally lets Hakyeon go when they can’t hear footsteps anymore, and as Hakyeon falls to the ground, getting a mouthful of sand, Taekwoon slumps against the wall between the doorway and the window.

“That was the man who put Sanghyuk to sleep.”

“It’s okay,” Sanghyuk mutters. “I’m fine. You don’t have to avenge me.”

They’re silent for a moment more. Hakyeon coughs up sand, and Taekwoon looks down at him, frowning. 

This frown looks concerned rather than “angry” or “neutral”.

Taekwoon pushes himself off the wall and bends down, offering Hakyeon a hand.

“I’m sorry for grabbing you and dropping you.”

Jaehwan says “smooth, boss” off to the side, but Hakyeon’s looking only at Taekwoon, wondering if it’s heat and confusion from being jostled around that’s making him think despite everything that he wants Taekwoon to stop looking troubled. It’s disturbing to see him ruffled when he’s usually so calm. Hakyeon wants him to feel like normal.

“It’s fine,” Hakyeon finds himself saying, though it would be more his style to complain. “You grabbed me to protect me and the dropping’s no big deal!”

He takes Taekwoon’s hand, giving him his best smile, and Taekwoon looks relieved as he pulls Hakyeon up.

Then he retracts his hand quickly, looking at the others still slumped against the ground.

“Let’s get back on track, everyone.”

“Let’s make that track away from the mages, please?” Hongbin asks as he stands up. Hakyeon almost breathes a sigh of relief, feeling the mood return to the usual.

“That’s up to Hakyeon,” Taekwoon says, and as quick as Hakyeon had his leadership taken away from him, he’s put in charge again.

He feels a bit too winded to do it right now, but he spits out some remaining sand and tries to smile anyways.

“I”m sure I can work out a route like that.”

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

To Hakyeon's surprise, by the end of their first night in Ardoran, it's clear that he actually does help with the bandits' scavenging.

Knowing the Ardoran language, for example, is a great asset they never had before. Not many signs have been preserved, but the ones that have are often helpful. Though he doesn't know the city like the back of his hand like he promised, Hakyeon can still guide the bandits from district to district knowing what's inside them after a few moments of thought. It's easy to match the signs proclaiming their location to the districts in the Ardoran books he's read, and by the end of the day, Hakyeon manages to find them a bank.

Most of them grumble, positive that this building, being so decorated and close the edge of the city, will definitely have been raided already.

"It's even well-preserved," Hongbin points out at some point as Hakyeon guides them down a hallway, eyeing a collapsed vase. "I'm pretty sure people would catch on that this is a good place to check."

But Hakyeon, knowing some of this bank’s safes were enchanted, just smiles and guides them down to the basement.

It's not hard to convince them he just read the code on some papers instead of repelling the spell with his ache. All he has to do is take them to a filing room, read some abandoned deposit slips, then pretend he's hit a revelation and run back down to the safes, turning the lock idly while he focuses internally.

Originally, Hakyeon knows, you need the original mage who cast the spell to remove it by pushing their personal magic energy through a complicated series of tubes that have to be aligned by hand through twisting the lock. It's a process that takes at least ten minutes of chanting, often more, because these are the high security vaults.

But with Hakyeon here and all the mages dead, unable to strengthen their spells, all he needs is to push the ache against the door to make the magic disappear, and turn the elaborate safe transformation back into the simple steel door it once was.

As the door opens, all the bandits gape.

This particular vault isn't exactly a treasure trove. There's a portrait of a man, two swords, and some clothing stored in it. The items must have held a lot of sentimental value for someone with a lot of money.

Still, the bandits gape, turning to look at Hakyeon.

"You really opened it," Sanghyuk says.

"I take back all my doubts," Wonshik looks genuinely impressed, coming around to pat Hakyeon on the back.

"If we can open the other vaults too, there will eventually be something that'll make us rich!" Jaehwan exclaims, rushing over to look at the swords.

"How much do you think this painting is worth?" Hongbin goes for the portrait. "Even if people don't believe it's from Ardoran, it doesn't look cheap..."

Hakyeon grins as he surveys his handiwork. The bandits are all very excited, examining the swords and curiously shifting through the clothing rack.

"Hakyeon," Sanghyuk calls out as he pulls out a coat, "are these clothes valuable at all? Fancy by Ardoran standards?"

Hakyeon's opening his mouth to answer when Taekwoon claps a hand on his shoulder.

Hakyeon turns around to face him, and is startled by the new intensity of his look and what could almost be a sparkle in his eye.

"You have to go back to that file room," he says. "We have to open the other vaults. All of them."

Hakyeon blanches, "This is the biggest bank in the city. We can't carry that much, we should leave some closed so other people don't come and-"

"All the vaults," Taekwoon repeats, pushing Hakyeon away from the current open vault's door. "No stone left unturned."

"I can't close the vaults again!" Hakyeon tells him, and that makes Taekwoon pause for a moment, considering.

"Half the vaults."

Hakyeon jumps away from Taekwoon's pushing and sighs, thinking it will be a longer time than he'd like before they can explore again.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

As it turns out, while they're setting down camp for the night, Taekwoon announces that it's just Hakyeon who won't be exploring.

"What?" Hakyeon can't help but exclaim, the "but no one else knows what I'm looking for" left unspoken, bouncing around his head in alarm.

"You are to stay here and open safes while Jaehwan guards you," Hakyeon resents both the order and the implication that he needs guarding. "Wonshik, Hongbin, Sanghyuk and I will be splitting into teams of two and checking for other areas worth investigating."

"You won't know what's worth investigating without me," Hakyeon says, pouting and crossing his arms.

Taekwoon seems surprised at the childish gesture, Jaehwan sniggers a bit, but Taekwoon presses on.

"We'll have a vague idea of what is interesting, and once you open half the other vaults, we'll be able to guide you through the places to see what really is."

"I only opened ten vaults today, and do you know how many vaults there are in this bank?"

Taekwoon pauses.

"A lot, it looks like."

"Hundreds, I'm sure," Hakyeon huffs. "I can't open them all, and we can't carry all even half their contents."

"Hakyeon's pretty right about that one," Wonshik points out.

Both Taekwoon and Hakyeon blink in surprise, unused to Wonshik taking Hakyeon's side, but Wonshik just shrugs.

"It might even be best to get him to open as few safes as possible so we can cross the desert, sell things, then come back without anyone else being able to get in them."

That makes Hakyeon freeze outright. He can't go across that desert and back again. The ache would get better then worse, then better then worse again, and he came here to get rid of it, not deal with it more.

Taekwoon pauses to contemplate that one. Hakyeon wants to interrupt but his tongue is stuck. He doesn't know what he can suggest that would sound more sensible and profitable than that.

He'd be stuck opening vaults whenever they were in Ardoran too. Hakyeon will never find his magic at this rate.

Hakyeon slumps as Taekwoon contemplates some more.

"He'll open ten more safes."

Hakyeon looks up.

"Just ten?"

Taekwoon nods, "Just ten tomorrow."

Wonshik frowns, "Boss, that's a pretty arbitrary number, I mean, twenty safes in total could get us twenty great hauls or twenty duds, and out of the ten so far we have a number of du-"

"Thank you!" Hakyeon cuts in, focusing purely on Taekwoon and smiling as wide he can. "I'll do it as quick as I can."

"We'll still explore while you do so, but the day after you can join us. If there are other places like this, we need to find them. We'll need a sampling of different things from different places."

"Oh," Wonshik is grinning now, catching onto Taekwoon's train of thought. "So we can see what's more popular at the market."

Taekwoon nods, "If we don't find any other places to scavenge, we'll just open more vaults here."

Hakyeon nods eagerly at that, and everyone else joins in, settling the matter.

They lapse into silence for a bit, watching the fire they've set up. It's fuelled by a chopped up bank desk, in an attempt to save the wood from outside the desert.

"You know," Jaehwan says after a moment. "I think this is the first time since Hakyeon came here that we've all been happy with the plan."

No one disagrees with that either.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

The next morning, Hakyeon works at pretending he's cracking the codes from the moment he wakes up, going from his tent straight to the filing room. Jaehwan walks in behind him at some point, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he hands Hakyeon a bowl of watery oats and fruit.

"Everyone else is up and gone," Jaehwan announces. "Got anything open yet?"

"I'm doing ten all in one go," Hakyeon tells him, taking out a file of what appear to be customer complaints. Maybe these will actually pass the time while he pretends to solve things.

"Have fun," Jaehwan tells him, leaving the room again. He must be very tired today, not to be chatty at all.

It doesn't take too long for him to wander back in though, and when he does, Hakyeon makes a show of finishing the stack of customer complaints, which were less interesting than he would have thought, and standing up triumphantly.

"I've got ten more safe codes!" He proclaims, which makes Jaehwan ask "already?" but he follows Hakyeon down to the basement anyways, and watches eagerly as he opens everything he was supposed to.

The problem with using his ache a lot is that the places it's been through start to actually hurt after a while. Hakyeon feels like his entire upper body, not just his heart, is pointing to his stolen magic now.

Jaehwan is just trying on the large collection of hats they found in one safe, asking Hakyeon what kind of person would wear each one, and Hakyeon is trying to think of a polite way to say he's too exhausted to come up with good answers when Sanghyuk appears behind them, out of breath from dashing down the steps.

Hakyeon doesn't register exactly what is happening, but Jaehwan tosses a hat to the side immediately, approaching Sanghyuk with worry.

"Did something happen? Did you find the mages again?"

That makes Hakyeon sit up, eyes wide. He wonders whether they've found the magic storage yet.

"Not... Not exactly," Sanghyuk says, drawing in a deep breath. "We're not in danger either, at least we don't think we are, we just really want to ask Hakyeon if this thing we came across is normal or not."

Hakyeon struggles to his feet, "If you have to ask, it's probably not normal."

"We just know there was a lot of magic here, and there's clearly a lot of magic at this place, maybe it's normal, I don't know."

Hakyeon is very, very interested by the idea of lots of magic. He's able to walk over to Sanghyuk while ignoring his pain entirely.

"What is it?"

Sanghyuk swallows, looking between Hakyeon and Jaehwan carefully.

"A building stopped in time."

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

Though Jaehwan protests that they can't leave him behind after telling him about something that weird, Hakyeon and Sanghyuk still leave him to guard their things and their new hauls as they make their way towards where Taekwoon, who had partnered up with Sanghyuk, is waiting.

He's a couple of blocks away from the actual building, leaning against a wall, but Hakyeon can already see the building they're talking about.

Hakyeon can almost _feel_ what they're talking about, because as he gets closer to the tower that's half knocked over, bricks dislodged and falling in mid-air, his ache seems to thrum with energy, pulse with longing, and guide him closer.

The instant he stands in front of it, Hakyeon feels his ache split through his entire body then come back to his chest again, more insistent in its pull than ever, and he knows he's found where his magic has been this whole time.

He remembers this building, almost. He didn't live too far from this district, and this tower was beside the mage's library, always overshadowing the building beside it, and though everyone told Hakyeon it was just another part of the library, Hakyeon thought it must be important to be so tall.

Hakyeon feels its importance physically now. He steps forward and reaches out, about to touch a levitating brick when-

Taekwoon grabs his wrist back.

“That is not a good idea.”

Hakyeon, coming back into himself, realizes it is indeed a bad idea when he’s not alone.

“I…” Sanghyuk is looking at Hakyeon with trepidation. “I take it this isn’t normal?”

Hakyeon takes a few paces back. His ache pulses in protest, but Hakyeon clenches his fists, willing it down. Now is not the time.

“No, not at all,” Hakyeon doesn’t know too much about magic, but he imagines the amount of energy it would take to do this isn’t usual either. To some degree, this must be happening because of the stolen magic inside.

“Do you have any idea what it is?” Taekwoon asks insistently, and Hakyeon shakes his head.

“It’s beside the mage’s library, that’s all I know,” he lies, surprised by how easy it comes this time. “Maybe someone inside tried to stop the explosion, but all they managed was this.”

Sanghyuk shivers, “Whatever it is, it’s creepy.”

“Likely not valuable either,” Taekwoon concludes, and turns away from it. “Let’s go back to camp, we’ll avoid this way tomorrow.”

Hakyeon doesn’t want to leave. Each step he takes away from it is another pang, another insistence that he’s going in the wrong direction, it’ll hurt even more if he does this, but Hakyeon plods on, sparing a glance for the collapsing tower over his shoulder.

Sanghyuk’s walking far ahead of Hakyeon, loudly declaring he’s had enough adventure for the day, but Taekwoon notices Hakyeon looking back and follows his gaze.

“Are you sure you don’t know what it is?”

Hakyeon shakes his head, forcing himself to smile even as his ache starts growing in his chest again, occupying a larger area.

“I thought it was something, but I was mistaken.”

Taekwoon obviously doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t ask anything else, and Hakyeon can’t help but be grateful.

It’s all he can do not to run back to that tower right now with how much the ache is growing.

If they really pass by it tomorrow, Hakyeon could be in serious trouble.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

The rest of the day passes by in a flurry for Hakyeon. As they go back to the camp, Hakyeon’s heart is unable to stop pounding, like it's scared of how strong the ache is getting. It's completely insistent about telling Hakyeon to go back to that building, tugging so much Hakyeon fears the ache will break out of his chest and fly through the air there itself. He doesn't think that's possible, the whole point is that it's anchored to him, but with the mages who put it there dead, he's not sure it's impossible either.

Hakyeon can't focus on anything else, and he thinks it shows. He keeps dropping things and staring off into space, often bringing his hand up to his chest. The bandits keep shooting him worried looks. Taekwoon especially seems concerned, hovering closer than usual, but he says nothing.

Hakyeon hopes it stays that way. He's not sure he has enough energy to commit to lying.

As he lies down for the night, listening to the beginning of Sanghyuk's snoring, Hakyeon's chest still feels tight, the ache feels like it will literally pull him at any moment, and he knows there's no way he's going to fall asleep.

Hakyeon sits up. He has to do this tonight.

He doesn't leave the tent silently, that's impossible to do, but he doesn't hear noise from any other tents, and Sanghyuk is still obviously asleep as Hakyeon closes the tent flap.

Maybe Hakyeon will be back by morning, no one will notice he's gone, no one will know what he's done, and he can travel with the bandits all the way back across the desert.

With that thought in mind, Hakyeon walks quickly, setting off outside the bank. It's too dark to see anything distinctive on the abandoned streets, but Hakyeon doesn't need to.

The ache points him exactly where he needs to go. It seems to quiver as he does, shaking up Hakyeon's whole chest.

Unsettled by the feeling, Hakyeon runs down the rest of the streets.

He knows the way there isn't exactly short, he must pass by a dozen blocks, but it feels short, he’s moving so fast with so much anticipation, and when Hakyeon's ache starts splitting he knows he's close enough that if he keeps running he'll reach it once he rounds the corner.

Once Hakyeon does, he stops.

Lights. Lanterns. Suspended on sticks, and held above people.

The mages.

"This is it," one of the deep voiced ones says. "The magic repository."

"You'd think we wouldn't be able to miss it," a high voiced mage says, and Hakyeon sees him step forward, towards a nearby floating brick. "This is pretty obvious."

"Not from a distance, it isn't," Hakyeon recognizes that voice as the one who was doing the tracking. "There are still cloaking spells on this thing. It hardly seemed more magical than other places when I was trying to sense it from faraway. I guess stopping it in time stopped its security from fading."

"What do we do now?" a mage asks eagerly. "If we want to extract it's energy we've got to set up, don't we? We’ve gotta take down these time spells if we don’t want to get stuck, though. What should we do first?”

Hakyeon inhales sharply. He _knew_ they were trying to take the magic.

Hakyeon takes a few more steps forward. He doesn’t know what he's going to do but he has to do something. He clenches his fists and gets ready to yell when something yanks him back.

He yelps, then, but the sound is muffled, covered by a familiar hand.

Taekwoon's dragging him behind a corner, and Hakyeon can't focus on the mage's conversation properly anymore at all.

He licks Taekwoon's palm, getting him to jerk back, and then turns on him, glaring though he knows neither of them can see each other.

"What are you doing here?" Hakyeon hisses, quietly, under the continued talk of the mages.

"I could say the same to you," Taekwoon is quieter than usual, but more intense. "What are you doing so close to here, much less the mages?"

"I don't need protecting, you know," Hakyeon tries to walk away, but Taekwoon grabs his shoulder, spinning him around to face him again.

"From mages, you probably do," Taekwoon tells him.

Hakyeon would snort if that wouldn't be too loud. With the ache still in his chest, still repelling all magic, he's safer from mages than anyone else.

"That's not even the point," Taekwoon starts again. "I don't understand why you'd even want to be out here in the first place."

"Why did _you_ want to be out here in the first place?" Hakyeon shoots back.

“I was still worried about the mages,” Taekwoon leans closer to Hakyeon, still stern. “You have no such reason to be-“

“Hey, do you hear something?”

Both Hakyeon and Taekwoon fall silent.

The mages fall silent too, listening.

“No, I don’t, Jungkook,” one of them answers, sounding sure of it. Hakyeon and Taekwoon both exhale. “You’re too sensitive to the spirits, you’re just hearing things.”

“Actually,” the magic tracker cuts in, “I can feel that weird gap again.”

Hakyeon stands to attention, almost sure they’re talking about him. This close to Taekwoon’s face, even in the dark, Hakyeon can see him frown.

“What are you talking about?” A high-voiced mage asks.

“I didn’t tell you about it, Jimin,” the magic tracker goes on. The others are so quiet that Hakyeon can hear him shift around. “Earlier, when we were passing some buildings, I felt an area that had no magic in it at all. There seemed to be slightly more magic around its edges, like it actually repelled magic.”

“That’s weird. You think it was enchanted?”

“Yeah, I thought it was something left behind, but I’m feeling it again now.”

“If it was an object that repels magic,” a deep-voiced mage answers gravely, “it couldn’t be enchanted to move, too.”

Hakyeon and Taekwoon make eye contact.

Taekwoon mouthes “run” at Hakyeon, stepping back.

Hakyeon runs forward instead.

The mages yell as he rounds the corner, too shocked to do much else, and Hakyeon doesn’t spare a thought for them. He can’t spare a thought for them while the ache is spreading, making a dim haze of pain all over his skin, and the frozen tower is right in front of him.

He runs, faster than he’s sure he has in years, but even so, just as he passes by the first dust suspended in the air, someone grabs his wrist.

Even more panicked, even more urgent, Hakyeon tries to tug his hand away, but the large hand grabbing him is strong, and he just pulls Taekwoon forward.

He stops, right beside a statue in the midst of having its head blown off, and looks at Taekwoon with wide eyes.

Taekwoon looks back the same way, disheveled and confused and more alarmed than Hakyeon’s ever seen him.

“What are you doing?” he asks, almost yelling.

Hakyeon, in spite of himself, is proud to have gotten so much of a reaction.

“I could ask the same of you,” Hakyeon replies. 

He looks off to the side, knowing the mages can’t get through to where the time’s frozen, and sees them stumbling around at the edges of the area, some of them being held back from pursuing, some of them starting to chant.

Hakyeon looks back to Taekwoon, who’s shaking his head in disbelief, grip on Hakyeon’s wrist as tight as ever.

“I was just worried about the mages.”

“You don’t need to be,” Hakyeon grins. “I’m immune to magic, see?”

“You repel it,” the realization is obvious on Taekwoon’s face. “Just like the mage was talking about. You’re the object that repels magic.”

“I won’t be for long,” Hakyeon answers, starting to walk again, dragging Taekwoon behind him. Taekwoon is stumbling, still caught up in realizing what’s going on. “But in the meantime, hold onto me. You’ll get frozen otherwise.”

Taekwoon is still shaking his head, but he complies as Hakyeon brings him into the tower, leaving the panicked mages behind for good.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

The ache behaves oddly once Hakyeon’s inside. It’s still spread out, but it seems to shift with every step, pointing more precisely in the direction it wants to go than ever before. It’s almost making Hakyeon dizzy, like it’s physically jerking him around, but part of the ache is anchored to Taekwoon, keeping the area’s magic away from him, and if Hakyeon focuses on that connection, he doesn’t feel quite so disoriented.

Taekwoon looks very disoriented though, looking around the tower's entrance open-mouthed.

There's a lot to see even here: statues, encased books, mage staves set up on a display in order of smallest to largest, and when Hakyeon looks up, he can see the roof starting to fall down on all of it.

Taekwoon follows Hakyeon's gaze, looking at the ominously hanging stone for a long moment. 

Then he locks eyes with Hakyeon, the haze of awe in his eyes turning into something else, his open mouth turning into a frown, somehow conveying concern, fear, and confusion all at once.

"Could you explain what's happening?" he asks, quiet and hesitant. 

It's the first time Hakyeon's ever heard him be hesitant. He wonders if that means some of the fear in Taekwoon's frown is fear of him.

"I can't explain everything," Hakyeon admits, carefully. Despite Taekwoon being a bandit, despite Taekwoon being intimidating himself, and despite Hakyeon wishing he was in charge, Hakyeon doesn't want to _scare_ Taekwoon. Like before, he'd much rather have Taekwoon relax. "I don't know why time is stopped here, for one, and I don't exactly know what this place is, except that my magic is here."

Some of the fear in Taekwoon's face disappears, but he doesn't relax by any means.

"Your magic?"

Hakyeon nods. Taekwoon looks at him curiously, almost pityingly, and Hakyeon looks down to avoid that gaze, looking at Taekwoon's grip on his wrist instead.

"I told you about my father, right?"

"Yes," Taekwoon answers. His grip on Hakyeon's wrist loosens, slightly, and he starts to rub his thumb against Hakyeon's skin. 

Hakyeon feels Taekwoon's small comfort, the tug of the ache, and the weight of the story he's about to tell all at once.

"He always did what was good for his business," Hakyeon tries not to sound bitter, talking about it in this context, but it doesn't work. "Doing good business was his first priority, and having a good reputation both in business and out of it was his second."

"He needed a perfect family to have a good reputation," Hakyeon continues, and he hears Taekwoon inhale. "A kind and competent wife, an heir he was training to take his place, and younger children who'd do other productive things for the family. He had this story he always told, about this man who sold great furniture, but people wouldn't buy from him once they realized his eldest daughter had run away from home."

"Were you the heir?" Taekwoon asks.

"No, I'm the youngest of my family," Hakyeon feels himself getting tense again. "I was... Born a mage. An uncommon trait in my mother's family, but not unheard of."

Taekwoon's thumb stops moving. He squeezes Hakyeon's wrist, extra reassurance, and Hakyeon would smile if he weren't coming to the conclusion.

"He knew his magic-hating clients wouldn't like that," he mutters, even quieter than Taekwoon usually is. "So when I was too young to remember, he had some professionals enchant my body." 

Feeling the ache jerking him around, knowing his father ordered that there, Hakyeon almost wants to cry about it again.

"It began hurting, a couple of years ago," Hakyeon soldiers on. Taekwoon, hesitantly, starts rubbing circles into his wrist again. "I had no idea I had been a mage. I thought the pain in my chest was some kind of disease, but when I went to the healer she said it repelled magic so it couldn't be a sickness. I started looking into what it could be when I read about a prince whose family had his magic removed through a spell that repelled magic."

Silence falls over them. Taekwoon slides his hand from Hakyeon's wrist down to his actual hand, grabbing it steadily.

"You guessed that was what happened to you."

Hakyeon swallows.

"I found confirmation in my father's old letters. I found the actual letter he sent to ask them to do it,” his voice is thick now. “My father never threw anything out, and I told him I wanted to know more about our life in Ardoran. He never knew what I was looking for."

"Then you came here," Taekwoon finishes, filling the blank in himself, and Hakyeon nods.

"I'm not really a scholar," he says, able to look at Taekwoon's face for that confession. Taekwoon doesn't look pitying like before, just concerned. "I only came out here for my magic. The spell hurts so much, I keep thinking my chest will actually cave in, so I joined you to avoid waiting for the next tourist company to come through."

Taekwoon considers this, furrowing his eyebrows.

Hakyeon wants to squirm. The story about his magic didn't turn Taekwoon off helping Hakyeon, but being lied to might.

"I thought you were looking for something from the beginning."

Hakyeon blinks at him, "You did?"

Taekwoon nods. Oddly, he's the one avoiding eye contact this time, looking at the floor as he admits it.

"You seemed too passionate just to want to tour," he says, almost shyly quiet. "I thought there must be something in Ardoran that you wanted very badly, but you didn't want to tell bandits what it was."

Hakyeon chuckles, "That's turned out to be kind of true, hasn't it?"

Taekwoon nods, still avoiding eye contact.

"It has, though not in the way I expected," he shakes his head to himself. "When I was listening to you, I was very... Struck by your enthusiasm. I thought it might not be that bad, to help someone that dedicated."

"You didn't help me because you thought it would make you rich?" Hakyeon asks, a bit skeptical.

"That was a secondary motive," Taekwoon says, looking up, and Hakyeon almost thinks he looks embarrassed now, though he's never seen Taekwoon be anything close to embarrassed before. "It was simply easier to explain to you and the others."

"I don't think I would have believed you if you said you just wanted to help me," Hakyeon says, almost teasing.

Taekwoon looks up, and this marks the second time Hakyeon's seen Taekwoon smile, "I wouldn't have blamed you for that."

There's silence again, this one less loaded than the last one, almost pleasant if not a bit awkward, then Taekwoon looks away, scanning the room around them.

"I have my explanation now," he says, stepping slightly away from Hakyeon. Their linked hands fall between them. "We should look for your magic."

"I know where it is," Hakyeon says, starting in the direction the ache is jerking him in now. After that exhausting conversation, he doesn't have enough energy not to follow it. "The spell, I call it the ache even though I know what it is, it points towards my magic."

"That is odd," Taekwoon says as Hakyeon starts towards a door at the end of the room, half-hidden by a bookshelf. 

The door looks like it should be fully hidden by the bookshelf but someone had pushed it aside. Someone might have been checking on it when the explosion happened.

Hakyeon opens the door, and looks down on a long set of stairs.

"Odd, but helpful."

Taekwoon nods to that, and they set off down the stairs, hand-in-hand.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

The magic storage is not how Hakyeon would have expected it to look.

Hakyeon, when he realized there would be more people like him, had expected glowing vials of energy, shelves and shelves of them, or maybe bottles on shelves, or perhaps boxes. It seemed like magic should be stored in containers, at least, but Hakyeon should have known better than to assume mages would use storage that makes sense.

Instead, Hakyeon and Taekwoon walk into a room full of glass cases built into the walls, and inside the glass cases are glowing objects of all kinds. Books, children's toys, telescopes, jewelry, statues, some swords, a whole menagerie of glowing objects are stored in the walls, floating and bounding in their cages. Not a single one of them stays still.

Since he sees other things moving, Taekwoon lets go of Hakyeon's hand. He doesn't freeze the instant he does, so Hakyeon lets him walk away to appraise the items.

"There's no pattern to them," Taekwoon says. "I thought they might all be expensive, important things, since only rich people could afford to get this done, but there's all manner of things here."

Hakyeon's ache is a bit disoriented by all the magic here, all of it belonging to someone whose chest has an ache just like Hakyeon's, all of it seeming a bit like the free, untainted magic of Hakyeon's, but sure enough, it refocuses in a direction and finally, it’s powerful enough to pull Hakyeon forward physically. He stumbles in the direction it wants, practically running across the room, past Taekwoon, who follows after, and it stops pulling when Hakyeon's in front of a glass case somewhere in the middle of the long hall.

Hakyeon's magic, ramming itself against the glass now, is contained in a long, red scarf.

He shivers with anticipation. His heart is beating faster than ever. He reaches forward, towards the lock he knows will open with a touch of his ache and-

"Is it safe?"

That's Taekwoon, come up behind Hakyeon, and Hakyeon jolts out of his trance.

Hakyeon frowns, "It should be. It's _mine_."

Taekwoon frowns in turn, but all he does is watch as Hakyeon reaches forward to touch the case's lock, projecting his ache down to his fingers for what should be the last time.

The door creaks open, and Hakyeon's magic freezes in midair, scarf looking like a snake poised to strike.

Then it bolts for the crack in the door, slithers along the wall for a few cases, and Hakyeon's so startled that it ran that he almost doesn't notice that when it stops, it's because Taekwoon's grabbed it.

Taekwoon brings it away from the wall without effort, and Hakyeon blankly watches it try to squirm out of Taekwoon's hand.

Taekwoon frowns, "It tried to get away."

"I didn't know it would do that," Hakyeon says, in his own defence, as he approaches it. His ache is throbbing.

Hakyeon reaches his hand out, and the scarf visibly jerks away, both ends of it pointing towards Taekwoon rather than Hakyeon, and Hakyeon can't help but be hurt.

"Is it rejecting me? Does it not recognize me?

"I think that spell on your body is still working," Taekwoon looks down at the scarf's struggle with curious eyes. 

Hakyeon feels sad, now, "That is what it's designed to do. Repel my magic right out of me." 

He feels his entire spirit deflating as his chest continues to ache, continues to long for the magic in front of it while also making it flee. The spell must have seriously deteriorated with age for it to be like this.

Taekwoon looks up from the scarf, looking at Hakyeon with determination as he sticks the scarf out towards him.

"It's useless," Hakyeon says, wanting to cry and laugh at the same time. "I still repel it, it will just escape. I'll be stuck with this ache forever-"

"You said it was a pain in your chest?"

Hakyeon, unsure as to what Taekwoon's getting at, nods.

Taekwoon steps forward, still extending his arm.

He takes a few more steps, until he's right in front of Hakyeon, so close that he brings his arm back in, though he's still offering the scarf, as much as it struggles in his hand, flailing and writhing.

"Should I apply this to your chest?"

Hakyeon blinks. Taekwoon looks back at him steadily.

"You could at least make contact with your magic, that way."

Hakyeon nods and Taekwoon takes a deep breath.

He brings his hand up again, hesitating for a second with the scarf right above Hakyeon's heart, and Hakyeon swears he feels his chest pulse out towards the magic there.

Then Taekwoon pushes forward, slightly, and Hakyeon feels too much.

He feels energy, so so so so much energy, and it seems to spread around the ache, pulsing through every vein he has, piercing every inch of Hakyeon's skin, then it doubles back, _pushing_ at the ache, and Hakyeon gasps from sharp pain, crying out as he feels the ache pushed out, it feels like it's been ripped out of him for real and Hakyeon can't help but scream.

On the edge of all that, he feels a soft material against his chest, and as he loses consciousness, too startled by the pain to do anything else, still thrumming with energy, he feels a steady hand against his back, keeping him from falling to the floor.

Then, after a few seconds of sensation that feel like hours, Hakyeon passes out and feels nothing at all.

 

~ o ~ o ~

 

Hakyeon wakes up in an unfamiliar tent, jolting awake with no problem. He should feel tired, he hasn't a good night's sleep in years and he’s been walking through a desert, but he feels fine. He feels energetic, almost.

Most importantly, he doesn't feel a pain in his chest.

Hakyeon brings his hand up to it, feeling for an irregular heartbeat, trying to feel the relief that comes with pressing there usually, but there's nothing to relieve.

There's no ache.

"Hey everyone, that Hakyeon guy's up!"

Hakyeon didn't even notice a face peering into his tent, but he sees the flap closing. The voice seems a bit familiar, but not so familiar that Hakyeon can place it. It's not any of the bandits, and he doesn't know who would be out here except-

"Excuse me," another familiar voice says, kneeling in front of the tent flap, "do you mind if I come in?"

Hakyeon doesn't answer, but the person lets themself in anyways, and as Hakyeon looks at their colourful robes, he realizes he's talking to one of the mages.

"Hello," they say. "I'm Seokjin, resident healer and eldest brother of this mage collective." He tilts his head at Hakyeon curiously. "Do you feel alright? You've been passed out for three days while your magic's reorienting itself. I'd expect either a lot of drowsiness or none at all. Do you feel like puking, maybe?”

"I'm fine," Hakyeon answers, unsure how to answer to any of that information. "I feel... Surprisingly fine."

"That's a relief," Seokjin says, sighing heavily after he does, crossing his legs as he sits across from Hakyeon. "We've studied the magic removal a lot, but nothing we found ever described what side-effects getting it back could have.”

"Unless it was like, the effects that tons of people getting their magic back could have on Ardoran society, but that shit was all written by bigots anyways."

Another person lets themself into the tent, and Hakyeon has the feeling this is going to be a pattern.

"Has Seokjin finished with you?"

"Yoongi, I just started," Seokjin scolds the newcomer, and Hakyeon stares at both of them blankly.

"I feel fine, that's all I've told him," Hakyeon offers Yoongi.

"See? He feels fine, no need for you to have worried so much," Yoongi tells him before turning to Hakyeon again. "You've been passed out for a while, haven't you?"

Hakyeon eyes both of them warily, "How did you find us?"

"After you so very thoughtfully sprinted into the tower, we decided to give up sleep for the night and set up the spells to take down the time spell," Yoongi frowns and crosses his arms like it's actually Hakyeon's fault they did that, "then in the morning we got it to collapse and when we went in, your friend scared the living daylights out of Hoseok by pushing his way out of the rubble covered in blood and saying we had to help you."

Hakyeon pauses, taking that all in.

"And you did help us?"

"Helping the people trying to recover their magic is our _goal_ here," Seokjin says, and the sincere way he says it tells Hakyeon he misjudged the mages completely. "Of course we'd lend you a hand."

"Though your friend's a little weird," Yoongi offers, and that's when Hakyeon registers what Yoongi said about Taekwoon in the previous story.

"Is he okay?" Hakyeon hurriedly asks, throwing off his blankets. "If the tower collapsed he could have been-"

"He's fine," Seokjin says, pushing Hakyeon down again and re-adjusting his blankets. "I tended to him quickly. I know what I'm doing with physical wounds, you know."

"Says a lot about our mage collective that you know so much, but whatever," Yoongi says, pulling out a notepad. "We want all the details of how that magic recovery process felt for you."

Seokjin starts hissing at him to stop bothering the patient, but Hakyeon interrupts quickly.

"I want to see Taekwoon.”

Yoongi stares at Hakyeon blankly. Hakyeon stares back. Seokjin heaves a large sigh.

“Let him get settled down, Yoongi, you can talk to him later,” Seokjin stands up, shooing Yoongi outside the tent before looking over his shoulder to smile at Hakyeon. “I’ll get Taekwoon for you.”

Then he’s gone, leaving Hakyeon inside the hot and stuffy tent, staring at the blankets laid over him and the backs of his hands. His hands are fine, completely uninjured, and since the rest of him doesn’t hurt, Hakyeon finds himself wondering how he could have been in a collapsed tower at all.

That’s the power of magic, he supposes. The thought sends a thrill through him.

“Hakyeon?”

Taekwoon’s opening the tent flap now, looking at Hakyeon with wide eyes. He looks fine, no bandages or bruises or scratches to speak of.

“That’s me,” Hakyeon answers, beaming.

Taekwoon falls to his knees, looking at Hakyeon with pure relief.

“You’re alive.”

“I am,” and Hakyeon is even more confused as Taekwoon quickly grabs his hands. “Why are you so surprised?”

“I thought you died when you collapsed,” Taekwoon admits, still looking at Hakyeon. He’s so intense about it Hakyeon feels like he should be blushing. “You were… Sparking. I thought it was killing you.”

“It’s my own magic, it wouldn’t,” Hakyeon insists, but Taekwoon just continues to look at Hakyeon, squeezing both his hands. “I feel better than I have in years.”

“No ache?”

Hakyeon smiles, and when happiness rushes up to his chest without any distracting pain there, Hakyeon smiles even more.

“None whatsoever.”

“And your magic?”

Hakyeon looks down at his hands again, still clasped in Taekwoon’s, and feels energy pulse through them.

“I think I feel it,” he says, still smiling in awe as he meets Taekwoon’s eyes again. “I don’t feel tired anymore.”

“That’s good,” Taekwoon says, breaking eye contact himself this time. “It will be nice if you don’t complain about wanting to sleep so much.”

Hakyeon laughs. Taekwoon’s being weirdly teasing right now, but he thinks they’re both too happy to care.

They fall silent, a comfortable silence, still holding each other’s hands.

“Is this going to be a thing now?” Hakyeon asks. When he looks at their hands for too long, it reminds him of the inside of the tower.

Taekwoon takes his hands back, embarrassed, and Hakyeon wants to laugh again, but he spares Taekwoon that embarrassment.

“The others are here,” Taekwoon says, changing the subject abruptly. “The mages don’t recognize us as the bandits they chased off. We told them we came here purely to help you.”

Hakyeon laughs, “With Jaehwan calling me ‘servant’ they’ll catch on that you’re lying almost immediately.”

“Not if we leave quickly,” Taekwoon points out, and that makes Hakyeon pause.

He’s a mage himself now, and he doesn’t know the first thing about magic, while this “mage collective” clearly knows a lot. If they stay for a longer time, even just a few days of pretending they’re not thieves, Hakyeon could probably learn a lot.

Maybe it could be a better choice for Hakyeon to stay and the others to leave.

Taekwoon must see some kind of change in Hakyeon’s demeanour, because he grabs Hakyeon’s hands again, distracting him.

“We don’t have to make decisions right now,” he says, softly, and already Hakyeon can feel himself relax.

They sit like that for a few more moments, holding hands quietly, stuffed together in the air of the tent. Hakyeon can hear some familiar voices outside now: Sanghyuk’s nearby, asking when he can go in Hakyeon’s tent, Jaehwan’s chatting with someone, even Wonshik’s deep voice manages to reach him, and Hongbin’s telling Sanghyuk to calm down. The mages must be around too, because there are more voices than the familiar ones, yelling across the camp to each other and chanting spells. All the noise gives Hakyeon the impression that the whole world is waiting for him outside.

In the meantime, Hakyeon is here with Taekwoon and his chest feels light, and since the world is waiting, Hakyeon will savour this moment a little more.


End file.
